Chapter 67 Samkiel
SAMKIEL
The Ig’Morruthen roars created a constant rumble as Dianna, Isaiah, and Cameron took down as many fleeing warships as they could. Fire, wings, and talons tore into the crafts, reducing them to crumpled sheets of metal before they cracked and fell, hitting the ground in a fiery explosion.
Lightning ripped from the sky, rolling an advancing ship.
Smoke poured from its hull as my feet touched down on its listing side, and I ran down the length.
I jumped off the back of the warship, aiming for the one below.
The clouds parted for me as I flipped to rocket through the air feet first. I hit the top of the ship, bursting through the metal shell into the bridge.
No guards rushed me. I was surprised to find it empty, but then I heard the grunts and crash of battle on the other side of the door.
Leaving them to it, I slammed my fist into the control panel, sparks stinging my skin as I grasped the cables and sent a bolt of lightning through the system.
I watched in satisfaction as every screen exploded and flames licked at the walls.
The ship dipped sharply to the right, and I stumbled.
I steadied myself and strode toward the door as the ship took a nosedive.
All the electronics were down thanks to my handiwork, so I forced the door open.
I stopped, bracing myself against the wall to take in the carnage.
Tattered and torn wings lay discarded on the ground, blood-splattered feathers floating in the air.
Guards lay in crumpled heaps in a macabre circle around a single man.
He was covered in their blood, half bent and huffing.
Kaden’s red-rimmed eyes glared at me for a second before I launched myself at him.
We landed in a huff, and he growled when my fist connected with his face. “What are you doing? We’re on the same side, you idiot!” he snarled up at me, trying to avoid my fists.
“Teaching you a lesson about how you speak to my wife.” I reared back, straddling him. He struggled against my hold and opened his mouth, no doubt to spew some kind of vitriol at me. Not giving him the chance, I gripped his jaw and held it open. I grabbed his tongue and ripped.
I PULLED MYSELF from the wreckage and pushed myself up, sand sticking to my blood-stained hands.
My boots sank as I took a few steps, coughing to clear my lungs of the smoke billowing into the air, my entire body aching.
I twisted, stretching my back and shoulders as I watched Kaden crawl out of the rubble.
“You couldn’t wait, could you?” I snarled, far from done with him. His eyes were a murderous, rage-filled crimson. We both were worse for wear, but his mouth had finally stopped bleeding.
“Oh, for a second, I thought that blasted memory dagger had worked,” Kaden said, his voice mangled as his tongue regrew. “Glad to see you’re still the same level-headed prick you’ve always been.”
“You’d like that, huh? For me to forget her so you could make your way in? Sorry, Kaden, she wouldn’t fuck you on your best day.”
“Go fuck yourself,” he all but snarled, but he didn’t launch himself at me. Pity for him that I had more than enough rage for both of us.
I was in his face before he could completely pull himself from the wreckage. “I was wondering when it would happen, when you would try again to be the wedge between us.”
“Blame me all you wish, but your wife has a right to know,” Kaden snarled back, his tongue fully regrown. “I am not the cause of your past transgressions.”
He barely got the last word out before I was atop him. Both of us threw fists in a wasteland of sand and broken warships. I threw him to the ground and straddled him, my fist connecting with his cheek and splitting it.
“Past transgressions I had because you and my evil, hateful sister robbed me of what was mine,” I yelled, slamming another punch down into his face before grabbing the collar of his armor and lifting him.
“And you’re a fool to think I don’t tell her everything.
She already knows about my past. I am talking about you so brutally tossing her sister’s life at her.
You might as well have twisted a blade in a forever-healing wound.
” Another punch. “How you snuffed that fire from her eyes and left hate in its wake. You have no idea how deeply you have wounded her. She still carries the jagged, broken pieces you left behind after all the years of your lying and deceit. Do you know how long it took before she would allow me to even attempt to tend the festering wounds you left behind? How they still crack open from time to time because of you.”
My fist connected with his nose. I knew he saw it coming, but he didn’t try to stop it.
The logical part of my brain flared, allowing me to think past the protective rage that always violently reared its head when it came to Dianna, and I realized he wanted this.
He wanted this punishment. I wouldn’t give him the absolution.
I pushed up off him, wiping at the bloody sand caked on the front of my armor.
Kaden sat up, spitting blood, something flashing in his eyes. I didn’t care enough to figure out what it was, but I hoped it hurt him. I spun away from him, striding past the warship we had fallen with. The consoles continued to beep and smoke from the electricity I had forced through the ship.
“I only brought it up because in her need to save you, she was blind to the dangers,” Kaden called after me. “She was being reckless.”
I bit out a harsh laugh as I spun. He half sat up in the sand, wiping the blood from his face. “So that’s what it is? You’re jealous she cared enough to want to save me?”
His face crumpled as he snarled. “I was worried about the fact that we’d all die when she rushed empty-headed into a fleet of warships.”
“Oh, blow me,” I snapped, tossing my hands toward the sky in agitation.
“You think I am blind? Deaf? I see the way you look at her every fucking day. I hear how your heartbeat rises in her presence. Your eyes never leave her, even when you pretend they do. I see the way you are around her. You’re a liar, and we both know it. ”
Kaden’s jaw clenched as if a part of him wanted to object, but then he took a deep breath. It seemed he was not willing to fight. “You’re right.”
My shoulders sagged, and I sighed. “I know I am. I am right because you think you feel the same way about her as I do. But you don’t love her. Not as I do. You don’t do what you have done to her, take what you have, and say it’s love. That’s not love.”
For once, the old him seemed to raise his ugly head as he jumped to his feet and stomped toward me.
“You think I don’t know that? But I don’t know what else to call it.
I can’t …” He stopped, lowering his gaze as if he realized what he was saying.
“I wish I felt nothing for her. I do, and I have tried to let it go. Nismera sent me to kill her, and I didn’t. Do you know why?”
“Because you’re a sick fuck who wanted something that was always supposed to be mine.”
“No.” He scoffed. “Because of how she is who she is. You felt it too. I know you did. I know how fucking miserable you were when you were locked away. Me fucking too. Dianna does that. She shows up, and gods above and below, she refuses to leave, to give up. She is light, Samkiel. I know you felt it too, because I did. When I met her, it was as if she chased every gods damn demon I had, and I fell. Hard. Fast and …”
I said nothing as he seemed to think of his words or was waiting for me to hit him again for them, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t because he wasn’t lying. That’s exactly what I felt. Dianna crashed into my life and saved me in more ways than one. She woke me up and made me care again. Made me love.
“There were times I wished I didn’t care if she breathed or cried because I had to be cruel,” he said.
“I know I hurt her. I was instructed to, and I had no choice. You may not believe me, but honestly, I don’t fucking care because it’s the truth.
I pushed her away in the only way I knew how, and I lied, and I used her.
There were times I prayed she’d just leave me and save herself.
I’d send her away to her sister, thinking the separation would help me, but I still crawled after her like a damn hound.
I know what I feel isn’t real to you, to her, or to anyone, but it was and is real to me.
It seems I can’t bury or get rid of these damn feelings, any more than I can die.
They keep coming back, eating at what damned, rotten soul I have. ”
Kaden took another step, invading my space as we stood eye to eye, but no anger bubbled there, only … pain. He yanked a blade from his chest strap and grabbed my hand, slapping the hilt into my palm. He jerked it forward, placing the tip over his heart.
“Do you think I want these feelings? By all means, Brother, cut them from my chest. Carve out the heart that still beats only for her. I beg of thee.”
I said nothing. I did nothing. Just held that blade there.
“I know she is yours,” he said finally. “I know that. Everyone does. It was written in the fucking stars. I just thought I could defy them. I can’t, and I don’t want to anymore.
You win, Samkiel.” He said the word not as a curse but with resignation.
“Is that what you need to hear? I will not try to take her from you any longer. That part of me died, too.”
Kaden waited as if those words would force my hand, but they didn’t. They wouldn’t. With a single deep breath, Kaden turned away from me, leaving me holding the blade he had angled at his heart. I dropped my arm to my side.
“What happened with Nismera?” I called out after him.
I knew it was more than his death. He had freed Isaiah and taken Miska, and I knew they had returned to her palace.
But since we found them, neither of them had spoken of her.
They had also made no attempt to betray the location of our home or call her legion to us. Something had happened.
Kaden stopped so abruptly that sand danced around his boots from the force.
He looked at me over his shoulder. Pain and betrayal flickered in his gaze.
It was quick, but it was enough to make me truly listen to his words.
“Isaiah and I are here to help until that death mark is off of us. That’s all you and Dianna need to know. ”
“Why?”
“Because what we have to deal with is far larger than unresolved emotions.”
My brows flicked upwards. “I don’t buy it. This newfound you. I think you are a beast tethered on Death’s leash, and that’s the only thing keeping you in control.”
Kaden avoided my gaze, but anger flashed across his face as if he knew whatever rebuttal he wished to toss at me was pointless.
“Let’s just say I am reaping what I sowed and leave it at that.” He turned back, walking away from me. I caught up to him, keeping the same pace.
I scoffed. “About time, I suppose.”
He stopped, and I did as well. “For me, yes, but not Isaiah.”
I couldn’t help the eye roll that followed. “You mean Blood Scorn. The commander who made the streets of the cities she wished to claim run with blood.”
Kaden’s throat bobbed. “You blame us for all that we have done while under the rule of someone we thought gave a shit about us, yet you don’t hold Dianna responsible for her actions.”
“Don’t,” was all I said.
“Don’t what?” Kaden lifted a single brow. “Admit the truth? Monsters are fine with you as long as it is the right monster, but what’s the difference between Dianna’s rage and ours? Would she not do the same to protect her family? You?”
“Don’t try to twist this to deflect from what you have done. You are the epitome of Dianna’s rage. She sacrificed for her family from the very beginning, and you used that to turn her and control her. So, what are you hoping for here? Pity? For you? For him?”
Kaden shook his head. “Not pity, but a fraction of understanding. Once again, I am begging you to let Isaiah have the life and freedom our father denied us. I am damned and far past the point of gaining any forgiveness. I deserve that, I do, but he doesn’t.
Take my life again and let that be payment for his.
I am not asking for a way out for me. It’s too late, and I have accepted what happens afterward, but I’d beg for him. He deserves a chance.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. A flicker of understanding as Kaden, heartless, evil, and cruel Kaden, begged me for Isaiah’s life once more. He begged for his brother’s life in exchange for his own, just as Dianna had done eons ago.
“You beg for him as if his actions alone don’t condemn him. He is not innocent or good.”
Kaden smirked, and some of the dried blood coating the left side of his face flaked off.
“You will learn that not many are, but none of this was his fault. It was mine. I dragged him, just as I did her, to the lowest part of the world, and he followed me because he is loyal and he loves me. He came with me because I am his big brother. If anyone should be punished for it, it’s me. ”
Smoke curled around us, growing thicker as the remains of the ship behind us crackled and bent, the metal creaking loudly.
Silence fell between us. The answer he wanted was not one I could give.
We walked up the embankment, ships continuing to fall and break around us as Nismera’s armada fell.
The destroyed ship behind us exploded, and a part of me wondered if it had waited until our conversation was over.
Was the outcome of our altercation so important that time had held still to see if we would shape or destroy the world?
I wondered what path we had unwittingly chosen.